Does It Pay to Be Friend of the Hospital District CEO?

In January 2008, when Broward Health CEO Frank Nask promoted his friend Deborah Breen to his former position as the district's chief financial officer, he gave Breen a raise that was 250 percent higher than the one that a previous interim CFO received just four years before.

Deborah Breen

browardhealth.org

A source in the district contacted Juice to provide additional information to this post from a few weeks ago that raised questions about Breen's $320,000 salary. According to that source, when Art Wallace filled the district's interim CFO role in September 2006 (see page 2 of this document), he received a 20 percent raise. After a new CFO was hired, Wallace stepped down from that role, but his next job at the district still came with more responsibilities than his original one, so he gave up just 5 percent of his previous raise, for a net increase of 15.

Breen's path was similar in most every fashion -- except for the pay.

Nask

browardhealth.org

After Breen was appointed to her interim CFO position, she received a pay bump of 42 percent, then another of 12 percent. When she left that job in August 2008 to assume her current one, she gave back the 12 percent raise, but she kept the 42 percent. She made more than $300,000 in salary and bonuses last year.

District sources say that Nask and Breen used to carpool together from Palm Beach County to their jobs at Broward Health.

It's one of the many loaded questions that will be broached at this morning's meeting of the Board of Commissioners. The action starts at 9 at Coral Springs Medical Center's Medical Office Complex conference room, on the first floor.